


Atropos

by halflock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cuplock, Fluff, Johnlock Fluff, Kidlock, M/M, Magical Realism, Other, aulock, may add other characters as I go, the rest is between seasons one and two, yep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halflock/pseuds/halflock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock, as a kid, was given a cup with a string tied to it.  He’d talk into it all the time like a telephone when he was processing thoughts, or feeling something strongly.  He’d feel better afterwords, swearing he could hear someone responding to him.<br/>After moving in with John, Sherlock has this uncomfortable feeling that John was the one he was always talking to- but now he has to figure out if it was really John, and if it is- how does he prove it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Atropos

His dark and large eyebrows were prominent on his tiny pale face. Because of this, Sherlock’s often overly emphasized emotions could be read at quite the distance since he was born. A slight twitch of them could relay excitement, curiosity, sleepiness, or playfulness. He couldn’t surprise his brother or parents with anything because his eyebrows would betray the the boy.

At the moment the patches of dark hair were furrowed, pointing almost into a perfect ‘V’ between his pale and intense eyes. His frustration would almost be cute or endearing on any other child, if it wasn’t for the words that were erupting out of his mouth to slap his older brother in the face.

“You only have to go to University because you’re an idiot, Mycroft. If you were actually intelligent they wouldn’t be forcing you to go to more classes.” Sherlock’s voice was bitter and his lisp was prominent from his emotion, even though he’d been going to speech therapy for six months. Mycroft was shuffling through the drawers of his mahogany desk, gathering everything into perfectly separated piles before smoothing his hair back and looking over at his brother.

It was just past ten in the morning, the window had its curtains drawn back, blue morning light caught flecks of dust in the air as it fell across the passionate seven-year-old’s face. His pale grey-blue matching pajamas were disheveled from sleep, and his mass of curls that were almost due for a trim were clouding around his angry expression. Small hands clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.

Mycroft set down the paperwork he had been sorting and breathed out in exasperation. He came around the desk and knelt in front of his brother. There were bags under his eyes from lack of sleep; he had been interning and working even through his first summer out of secondary school. His mouth was tightly drawn from concentration, but his gaze was soft on his brother.

“Sherlock, you can’t cling to me this tightly. You need to learn that you can do so much more alone than you can with other people holding you back,” Mycroft said gently. If he was completely honest with himself, he didn’t believe his own words. If he was completely honest with himself, he’d admit that the distance from his brother was killing him also. If he was completely honest with himself, he’d acknowledge that he loved that his brother wanted him to stay.

But he fed himself lies, so he let his brother dine on the same.

Sherlock's face contorted even further into something of a grimace. "Mycroft, I don't want you here because I need you or I miss you. I don't want you here at all, honestly. I'm just informing you on why they're sending you off to college. Since you're so obviously stupid I wasn't sure that you had caught on," Sherlock shouted, his pale face was becoming prickled quickly with splotches of red from his anger. If Mycroft was going to lie, Sherlock was happy to do the same.

"Quiet down Sherlock, you'll scare away another nanny," Mycroft said fondly, hoping to calm down his brother. 

He wasn't exaggerating. Their mum had been sent abroad to help go over some problems a company she was commissioned by was having, and their father was at work in the meanwhile. The nannies their father had chosen, all six of them before the current one, had all been scared off. One was disgusted to find a semi-dissected toad in her handbag, another had her keys disappear while she swore they were in her pocket the whole time. The fifth one hired had gone out to her car, only to find that Sherlock had emptied a colossal ant-farm into it. 'I'm surprised they weren't bees,' Mycroft had commented at the time. 'She wasn't worth upsetting bees,' was Sherlock's reply. The young troublemaker's newest nanny was an older woman whose face was cracked like glass in a woodchipper. She spoke slowly and with a low voice and had a strong smell of cinnamon that seemed to follow her everywhere.

Sherlock despised her. Mycroft had caught him weaving stinging nettle into her hat just the night before.

Mycroft was wonderful with words. He learned from a young age that a calm, therapeutic voice with confident words could get him most anything he needed to continue to advance. However, with emotional situations and with Sherlock, this skill didn’t seem to have such a strong effect.

“Will you take a bribe to behave?” Mycroft asked, again sighing a little more heavily than the situation called for. Sherlock’s face relaxed a bit, and his eyebrows, for the moment, allowed his face to be unreadable.

“It will cost you,” Sherlock responded, taking on the look he’d seen Mycroft use many times while making arguments. His eyes were only slightly narrowed, and his lips were relaxed into a flat line. He willed his eyebrows to not betray his desperation for what he’d been trying to convince Mycroft and his parents to let him have for ages. Mycroft looked him over, fighting the fond smile that was tugging forcefully at his lips.

“That’s a large piece you’re bargaining for, Sherlock. There are rules though. You have to let this nanny stay on the entire time I’m gone, you can’t use it without her in the room, and you have to write me every other week, three hundred words or more on what is going on here and in your classes. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, Mycroft.”

“If you break any of those rules, it will be taken away, understood?”

“Yes, Mycroft.”

Sherlock was trying hard to keep his voice and expression level. He’d been practicing sounding disinterested. Mycroft was filled with a toxic mix of pride and worry, and closed his eyes and breathed in. When he breathed back out, it was with his answer on his tongue.

“Fine, I’ll tell Miss Em to take you to the appliance shop in town tomorrow,” he slid his eyes open and started to turn to go back behind his desk.

“Tonight.” Sherlock’s rebuttal, this time, was not part of their usual bartering system. Mycroft quickly hid his surprise, wondering what other new things Sherlock would have to surprise him with when he got back.

“If you get it tonight, you have to go out to dinner with father and myself and we’ll pick it up after,” Mycroft replied. Sherlock nodded his consent without hesitating. “Alright then,” Mycroft sighed at him, sitting down in his chair and beginning to look over the papers in front of him. Sherlock began to leave before Mycroft spoke again.

“If you stick any opisthokont in it while the creature is still alive, we will take both it and the rest of your lab supplies away, Sherlock,” Mycroft said gently. It wasn’t an accusation, more of a mild worry. Sherlock rolled his baby blues so hard they could have changed the rotation of the Earth.

“I already know what happens to live subjects when introduced to radio waves at that level, Mycroft. Why would I repeat the research someone else has done when they’ve done it properly?” the seven-year-old said, reining in his lisp for the moment.

“It’s going to stay in your station in the shed. You will not have it in your room,” Mycroft continued, he wasn’t done balancing Sherlock having the microwave that night.

“Ugh, Mycroft, fine, now let me leave- your room stinks,” Sherlock replied, frustrated and losing ground by the moment.

“Dinner’s at six,” Mycroft replied, finishing the conversation. Sherlock rolled his eyes again, didn’t reply, and walked calmly out of the room. After closing the door slowly behind him, he darted off down the hall, his bare feet slapping on the hardwood floor. Mycroft followed the sound with his eyes and smiled sadly, wondering if he was helping his brother by treating him how he did.

-

Sherlock refused to eat at dinner. He explained it away as excitement for his new lab equipment, but his father and brother passed knowing looks between each other.

His father was proud, really, that Mycroft was going off to a good university. He was happy that the boys took after their mum; it made times that she was off on work easier for him not to miss her as much as he used to before the children. However, it also made him feel a bit alone when his youngest child was already smarter than he was. Mister Holmes was intelligent against the common person, but his children were obviously not average in any regard. Mycroft treated him kindly and respectfully and still came to him in times of uncertainty, but he wasn’t sure his youngest would do the same. Mister Holmes was only a handful of years away from fifty, and he was worried his younger son would become bored of him without Mycroft as a buffer.

After dinner they stopped at a local shop, Sherlock walked directly to the one he wanted--no, needed--and then a short while later were setting it up in his workspace. He peeled the plastic slip off the glass front with satisfaction and stared proudly at it, eyeing his glass beakers and dishes to figure out what he was going to put in it first.

“I’ve never known a kid to want their own microwave,” Mister Holmes chuckled to Mycroft who in turn smiled fondly at his brother.

“It should keep him entertained enough. I’d warn Ms. Em though,” Mycroft replied gently, he absentmindedly smoothed back his hair. “I’ve got a list of tutors who may be able to handle him, and their numbers, on your desk if he gets in too much trouble at this new school. I hope we don’t have him trying to sneak pirate sword replicas again,” he said it without sympathy, as if it were just a passing comment. He knew his father was insecure.

“You know you can call me any time, Mycroft. You can call him also,” Mister Holmes laughed, “but I’m not sure he’d answer for you at this point.” They shared another smile. “You’re only sixteen,” Mycroft shot him a sharp look, which proceeded to ignore. “I know you’re intelligent, obviously you are, but I need you to be careful out there. I didn’t expect you have to let you go so soon. You’re much younger than I was when I went off,” he said, not embarrassed in his emotion. He had always been completely honest with his boys. 

“Mummy would kill me if I did anything to get myself in trouble. I’ll be careful,” Mycroft said fondly. They stood there in comfortable silence a few more minutes before corralling the young microwave-equipped scientist back to the house for bed.

-

Sherlock’s sheets were kicked to the end of his bed, and he lay flat on his back, his right foot impatiently tapping on the wall beside his bed. The room had already been flooded with the blue light of dawn, a couple flecks of golden sunlight began leaking in through his window, and Sherlock waited.

From the yard, the whistling chirps of a wren crisply welcomed the new day, urging with its cliched morning song for any life to start into motion, yet still Sherlock waited.

He could hear his brother and father moving through the house. Sausage and eggs were being cooked. Two rolling suitcases, a duffle and several boxes had been removed from Mycroft's room and taken down the hall. Ms. Em had arrived and was drinking coffee while reading the newspaper and chatting politely, and Sherlock waited.

It wasn’t until he could hear them talking about leaving, Mr. Holmes and Mycroft heading to the door, that Sherlock sat up and got out of bed. His first few steps were soft and slow, but after a moment more he swung his door open and bolted, running as fast as he could through the hall and down the stairs. His feet slapped loudly on the hard wood, and his eyebrows were knit close on his face in frustration. He rounded through the sitting room, lunging into the kitchen and out the front door, ignoring that his feet immediately got damp from morning dew.

“You weren’t going to say goodbye?” he demanded angrily, his voice raised and panicky. Mycroft stepped away from the car door he had just opened and looked his brother over carefully.

The older Holmes boy had two options, and he knew them well. The first was that he could spare his brother the pain of missing him, give him a reason to be mad at him to distract him from the sting. He had been attempting this option by leaving without giving word. He knew Sherlock would be awake. He knew it would drive him mad. But hate is much easier to deal with than sadness. This had been proven with Redbeard.

The other option was to express to his brother how he’d miss him and give him a proper goodbye which wasn’t terribly ideal and would probably cause one or both of them to cry. It was obviously the healthier option, even if it wasn’t the easier option.

Mycroft smoothed back his hair, leaned down, and hugged his little brother tightly. He could hear his father suck in a breath of surprise, but he ignored it.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock said, a touch of bewilderment in his small voice. Mycroft pulled away from the hug and looked into his brother’s pale heather eyes. “You should stop smoothing back your hair like that so often, or you’ll be balding before you’re forty,” he quipped, not allowing his eyebrows to betray him.

He had chosen the first option, then.

Mycroft narrowed his eyes slightly, fighting the urge, his one telling habit, to smooth back his hair in an attempt to gather himself.

“Do behave for Ms. Em or your new plaything will be taken away,” he said curtly, turning away and walking back to the car as Sherlock shouted angrily to his back about how none of his lab equipment should ever be called a ‘toy’. Mycroft wasn’t ashamed at the sparse tears he shed in front of his father during the long ride to his new home, knowing that he would never be able to call his childhood home properly his again.

-

The expanse of the redwood table in the space between his hands was what garnered all of Sherlock’s attention. Ms. Em was talking about how she had recently started a garden in the small yard behind her kitchen.

“Sunflowers, tomato, squash, most berries,” Sherlock began, mumbling down to the table.

“Oh? What’s that?” Ms. Em asked, taking another sip of her coffee.

“Plants that attract honeybees and will allow them to thrive,” Sherlock said, looking up at her for the first time in twenty minutes. “You should plant these and consider getting a bee house. They aren’t terribly expensive, and I know my parents are paying you well enough.” Ms. Em looked at him for just a moment, before nodding.

“That’s a fantastic idea, Sherlock. We could make that our project for this next couple weeks before school starts if you’d like. You can help me pick the plants and bee house out. It would be a giant help.” She set her coffee down. Sherlock raised his eyebrows, surprised.

“Really? Do you mind if I bring a camera?” he asked, a bit excited.

“Sure, of course, but first,” she stood, walking to the fridge. “You have to eat at least a little something for breakfast.”

He managed to get down two eggs and half a slice of toast with strawberry jam on it, and within half an hour they were gone.

They spent most of the day in her garden. She had him sit on the patio out of the sun while she worked and listened as he droned on about queens, workers, and drones.

“Did you know a queen bee can live up to five years? That’s longer than most guinea pigs and other small rodents children my age entertain as pets. Honestly, bees make a much smarter pet. You don’t have to get as attached, and you get honey out of the deal so even after they die you have something sweet to remember them by.”

“I’m glad you’re so happy to talk, Sherlock,” Ms. Em said fondly, pulling up another small patch of earth and filling the hole with epsom salt. “Do you want to talk to your brother? It’s exciting for him to be starting University. He is really going to do well I think,” she looked up to smile at him, but his expression had soured.

“Why would I need to talk to my brother?” he asked, a bit peeved that his brother was brought up when he’d been having such a lovely one sided conversation without him being involved.

"You've been listing off facts all day, but you haven't once mentioned how you feel about him leaving." She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "For the last month I'd seen the two of you, you waited outside his door when he was making calls, you clung to his every word. Your brother sneaks things for you under the guise of responsibility, but he really didn't have to indulge you and get that microwave," she said thoughtfully.

"He did that so I wouldn't 'chase you off'," Sherlock said bitterly.

"Oh you couldn't chase me off," she laughed, lowering a small tomato plant into the ground. Sherlock eyed her for a moment, and then leaned back and stared at the arm of the chair he was sitting in.

"It would take well over one thousand stings from a honeybee to kill a non-allergic average human adult," Sherlock said in a monotone voice, slinging his back a bit. It was dramatic and a bit ridiculous, causing Ms. Em to laugh loudly. Sherlock furrowed his brows for the eightieth time that day and didn't say another word for the rest of the afternoon until they arrived back at his home.

-

Ms. Em had brought a couple things from her house: a disposable coffee cup, and some string. Sherlock didn't think much of it, assuming she was going to take the coffee from the kitchen and that maybe telling his father about that would make her fall into distaste.

Sherlock's father wasn't expected back until late, so she made dinner, bustling around the kitchen as if it were her own. Within an hour, she had Sherlock seated and was watching him carefully to ensure he had at least three bites of each item, chicken, spinach, and macaroni and cheese. Sherlock ended up finishing his spinach.

"Honeybees can't survive alone, Sherlock, they need many, many others to make a hive and survive together," she said, cutting into her chicken breast. "If one gets lost or separated it will try and try to send out a signal. It'll try to make markers so that the other bees will find it and it can be with them again," she took a bite and chewed it. Sherlock kept his expression level and watched her intently. "It's important that you get your emotions out, it's important that you can express yourself-" Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but she raised her hand. 

"I'm not saying you have to talk to me, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to call your brother every time you're upset about something, even though it would be a good thing to do. You need a way to express yourself though." She paused and took another bite. "I'm not going to force you to use a diary, or to start up drawing to get your feelings out, so I had an idea from when my kids were still young."

She set her fork and knife down and reached over into her bag to pull out the red string and the coffee cup. She set them on the table and then left to go into the kitchen. Sherlock watched her, confused, and pushed his plate away from himself. He stared at the items set out and was slightly hopeful that whatever it was she was going to try to make him do would be easier than talking to Mycroft.

"Now, at first you might feel a little silly, but after a while you'll warm to the idea of it. It's very important that you give it a try, at least." She used a paring knife and nicked two holes into the bottom of the cup, looping the string through them and then tying it together into a loose knot. Sherlock stared at the odd makeshift whatever-it-was for a moment before shooting a puzzled look to Ms. Em.

"Basically," she continued, dropping into the kind of voice a flight attendant would use before take off. "You lift the open side of the apparatus to your face, and speak directly into the open area. You do not have to have it touch your mouth, and you do not have to speak very loudly, or even above a whisper for it to function properly." She quirked a smile at him, and waited for his response.

"And the string?" he asked, still utterly confused.

"Well it connects you to whoever you want to talk to," she said cheerily, overly dramatically motioning to the length of the red string. Sherlock stared her down and started keeping a mental checklist. If he could convince his father that she really was a bit _off_ , it wouldn't be that difficult to get her to be gone. Maybe six nannies will be the number Sherlock needs to go through before his parents will realise that he's really better off without them. Sherlock decided the best action would be to humor her.

"So I can talk to anyone with this device, and you won't bother me about talking to my brother?" he asked, trying to get a bit more out of it.

"Well, you won't have to call him, but if he calls you it's expected that you speak to him," she responded, setting the cup-phone down.

“Will I need their phone number?” He was going to prod at her just a bit more.

“Just think about someone, and what you’d say to them as you speak into it,” she said, obviously a little delighted that he was showing any interest at all.

“I’ll consider it,” Sherlock responded, and then stood up from the table. “I want to go spend some time in my work area. Is that alright?” he asked, not really asking for permission, just trying to be sure she doesn’t catch on that he’s going to be full-out trying to get rid of her. She may have used a bee-fact in conversation, but that didn’t make her any more interesting in his eyes.

-

After his bedtime that night, Ms. Em slipped into his room and set the cup and string on his bedside table. He stared at it, after she left, until he fell into an almost-comfortable sleep.

The cup sat there for a full week. He grew quite skillful at ignoring its existence.

The first day of school came, and Sherlock was in trouble within the first hour for asking his teacher why he got roaring drunk the night before the first day of school and that the hangover wasn’t going over well. Sherlock was sent home, and when he and his father got there, the look he gave Sherlock could have broken the boys heart.

“Sherlock, it’s just us, you know. Right now it’s just us, and I need to work- I want you to be happy and I know it’s difficult in that school, but I need you to understand that I can’t just swoop in and pick you up every day. I can’t afford to have Em start her shift early just because you decide that your teacher isn’t good enough. I really need you to be good, Sherlock,” he said gently, but his face was rife with worry. He was anxious that Sherlock would hate him for not being more understanding. Sherlock read it as complete disappointment and forced back any emotion he could, willing his eyebrows to lay flat.

“I understand, Father. I’m sorry,” he said gently before excusing himself to his room.

That evening Mycroft called and gave Sherlock an earful about how important it was that he be good for his father and how important it was that he not do anything to mess up his father’s job. He asked Sherlock if he needed Mycroft to stay out of school for the semester. Sherlock panicked and hung up. He had hoped his father would understand, but he didn’t. He had willed for Mycroft to understand, but he blatantly didn’t. He was angry, and crying, and so alone.

Angrily he picked up the cup and pointed it to his face, wanting to talk to ‘not Mycroft’, anyone except his brother. He sobbed into the cup, angry for being so emotional, angry for letting it control him. He was trying to quiet down so his father wouldn’t hear him and see him in this state, when he thought he heard something from the cup.

“Hello?” the voice asked again. The voice was a little pitchy and tinny as it echoed out of the cup to him, he stared at the strange device and frowned, wondering when he fell asleep. “Are you still there?” the voice requested, it faltered a bit and seemed unsure. Sherlocks eyes were wide, and he turned the cup over in his hands, looking it over before bringing it up near his mouth.

“Who is this?”

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [forget-me-lock](forget-me-lock.tumblr.com) <3
> 
> Kidlock will only be for the first two or three chapters, and then after that the rest of the story will be taking place between Series 1 and 2.
> 
> Any feedback is great! I'll be updating once or twice a week depending on my work load <3 Thank you for checking in!
> 
> I can also be contacted on my tumblr: [halflock](halflock.tumblr.com) <3


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